Messages - hammer101

Chicago let me in off of their waiting list today! I was called by the director of admissions this morning letting me know that I was under consideration and wanting to confirm my interest, and then she called me this afternoon to let me know that I was accepted.

I sent them an email earlier this week wanting to know if there had been any movement on my application. I also let them know in the email that I was still highly interested in attending the school.

I am absolutely elated!

Wow...WL reject from GW and WL accept from Chicago -- just goes to show how arbitrary the process is. Many congrats!

You can transfer up, but only if two things happen: 1.) you do very well during your first year at whatever college you matriculated to (this implies law review, top 15%, in many cases top 10% or 5%, depending on the school you're transferring to) and 2.) that your stats (undergrad GPA, lsat score) are strong enough to have made you competitive as a first-year applicant. You'll have some leway if you have a relatively low lsat score, but not enough to get you into harvard if your lsat was sub-165 (sub-170 really). Just do well wherever you end up at, and aim at schools that are ranked above it within 10-20 positions (it is a little difficult to jump tiers, but certainly possible). I can't think of any schools that don't average lsat scores, but I think Penn is one of them assuming you score at least 5 points above your previous score (in your case, you'll need to improve your lsat score by at least 30 points to be competitive for Penn and comparable schools. If those schools average your score, you'll have no chance at them unless they feel very generous). Good luck with your second lsat exam and your second round of law school apps. It sucks you have to go through this again. Hopefully this time will work out for you better.

Good advice for the most part, except one thing -- actually, to transfer up you don't have to have an LSAT score on par with admitted students (there are exceptions...but Harvard is the only one I know of). It makes sense if you think about it. The LSAT predicts your law school performance, and once you've earned grades in law school, the LSAT is kind of moot.

Otherwise, solid advice. I agree that in many cases you'll probably need better than top 15% to transfer, though I've heard some schools (Wash U comes to mind) will take you as long as you're at least top 25%.

Oh, and other schools that don't average your LSAT scores include Minnesota, Cornell and Pitt (there are probably many more I can't think of off the top of my head).

As someone who spent the last year researching the end of WWII in Japan for her thesis, I always find it astounding that people can draw this comparison. The war in Japan would have dragged on much longer and the victory probably would have been much less decisive without the nukes being dropped, something that even then was so widely criticized. But would anyone who touts that great victory support the same tactic today? (not that I think it's entirely feasible given the scattered nature of the enemy)

Another poster called Paikea did research on the same subject, yet came to the exact opposite conclusion. It might be interesting if you and s/he could compare notes. Hell, maybe you could organize a whole symposium on the subject. As a complete history nerd, I'm being completely serious.

I'd attend! As long as it takes place somewhere on the Vegas Strip, of course.

I referred specifically to the mess in Iraq which arose from our botched invasion and occupation of that country. Nice try trying to change the subject.

I never understood why Hitler declared war on the U.S. The tripartite pact clearly wasn't the reason because the Japanese didn't respond in kind earlier in 1941. Since Hitler believed one of the reasons the Germans lost WWI was because the Americans entered the war, it always struck me as odd that Hitler chose to go down the same path. Do you think he was just so overconfident because a German victory on the eastern front seemed much more certain in December 1941?

What are my chances posts are dumb. First of all, usually the posters just post a GPA and LSAT and expect you to tell them their chances. Can't they go on the US News website and look at GPA/LSAT medians?

If they can't figure out how to do that, I would say their chances are not that great... maybe that is what they need to be told.